5§4 



NATURE 



[Oct. 12, l8#2 



were aroused by the earthquake shock which has caused so much 

 alarm and damage to the whole isthmus. The duration of the 

 shock was fully 60 seconds, and was so severe that the whole 

 populace rushed into the streets as rapidly as their feet could 

 carry them. About half an hour afterwards another shock was 

 felt, but much lighter than the first. A deep fissure was opened 

 in the earth from the south end of the freight-house for a dist- 

 ance of about 400 feet along the walk leading in the direction of 

 the ice-houses. Many buildings were moved slightly from their 

 foundations, but on the whole remarkably little damage was 

 done. On board the vessels in the harbour the shock was also 

 felt very severely. About 1 p.m. another much slighter shock 

 was felt, and during the succeeding night two more slight disturb- 

 ances were reported. It may be of meteorological interest to 

 observe that the sea at the time remained calm, the atmosphere 

 quite clear, and the stars and waning moon remarkably brilliant. 

 Soon after, say about 4 o'clock, a slight fog wafted from inland ; 

 no rain fell. All day an ominous calm prevailed without 

 rain, with fluctuating barometer and excessive heat. Another 

 slight shock occurred at Panama on the morning of the 9th, 

 a little before 5 o'clock, but fortunately no damage was done. 

 The same shock was lightly felt in Colon and along the railroad 

 track. All day on Saturday no shock was felt, and the night 

 passed quietly. At mid-day on Saturday, there was a marked 

 change in the atmosphere, and, with a refreshing shower which 

 fell, the murky, sultry air of the previous days entirely disap- 

 peared. The rumours of a volcanic eruption at Chagres are 

 entirely without foundation. The earthquake was felt there, did 

 some little damage, and opened a few cracks in the ground. The 

 earthquake of the 7th was felt at the Pearl Islands, in the bay. 

 At Donoso, Govea, and Rio Indio a number of shocks were felt, 

 and the people were much frightened. At Miguel la Borda, 35 

 miles from Colon, in the direction of Bocas del Toro, the tide 

 rose to an unusual height and flooded some of the houses, which 

 are built on the beach almost on a level with the sea. The earth 

 sank in about a dozen places. The Governor of the district 

 writes officially that several boiling springs suddenly appeared, 

 some of which throw hot water to a considerable height. Letters 

 have been received from the towns of La Villa, Chitre, Macara- 

 cas, ann Nata, all in the State, announcing that several shocks 

 have been felt, but that the material of which the houses are 

 built — bamboos and adobes- — resisted the movements, and they 

 suffered no damage. Two or three slight tremblings were 

 experienced in Panama during the night of the 12th, but they 

 caused no alarm, and many people were returning to their 

 houses. 



In the Photographic Exhibition, which was opened in Pall 

 Mall on Monday, there are several pictures of more than artistic 

 interest. We may mention especially Captain Abney's views 

 taken on the Alps, and showing the great difference in the 

 photographic quality of the light reflected from the sky at high 

 altitudes (9,000 to 10,000 feet), and that reflected at lower levels. 

 Mr. Grant's photographs taken on board Mr. Leigh Smith's 

 yacht Eira during her cruise to Franz Josef Land in 1880, are 

 also of interest, as is also Mr. Shad bolt's photograph taken from 

 the car of a balloon at the height of 2,000 feet, showing the 

 streets and houses below. 



The Council of the Statistical Society have again decided to 

 grant the sum of 20/. to the writer who may gain the " Howard 

 Medal" in 1883. The subject is — " The best exposition of the 

 experiences and opinions of John Howard on the preservation 

 and improvement of the health of the inmates of schools, prisons, 

 workhouses, hospitals, and other public institutions, as far as 

 health is affected by structural arrangements relating to supplies 

 of air and water, drainage, &c." Candidates are referred to the 

 text and foot-notes of Howard's two works on "Prisons" and 

 " Lazarettos." 



Botanists will learn with satisfaction that the Cavaliere 

 d'Amico has succeeded, not without considerable difficulty, in 

 acclimatising a number of foreign plants in Sicily. They are 

 being exhibited at the present moment at the Agricultural Exhi- 

 bition of Messina, and excite a great deal of interest among the 

 spectators. Amongst them are the tea plant, Persia gratissima, 

 Cinchona succintbra, Indigo/era tinctoria, and Afyrica ceri/era. 

 Cav. d'Amico intends to establish a tea plantation of some extent 

 not far from Messina, and it is hoped that Sicilian tea may in a 

 few years become an important article of commerce. 



In a vineyard at Bonn, Phylloxera have recently made their 

 appearance. The necessary precautions were at once taken. 



The eminent Berlin sculptor, Herr Pohle, is now about to 

 complete a bust of the celebrated geographer, Karl Ritter, for 

 the Geographical Society of Berlin. 



Prof. Simon Newcomb, of Washington ; Lieut. T. L. Casy, 

 United States Army ; Ensign J. H. L. Holcombe, United States 

 Navy ; and Mr. Julius Ulke, forming the expedition despatched 

 by the Government of the United States to observe the transit 

 of Venus at the Cape, left Plymouth last Friday in the Union 

 Steamship Company's mail steamer Durban. Miss Newcomb, 

 daughter of the Professor, the lady member of the expedition, 

 is in London, the epidemic of smallpox at the Cape deterring 

 her from proceeding with her father. Mr. Gill, the Astronomer 

 Royal at the Cape, has expressed his willingness to render the 

 members of the expedition every facility as to the selection of a 

 station by collecting information. It is probable that Beaufort, 

 which is 300 miles from Cape Town, « ill be chosen, from the 

 fact that in that district there is proverbially a clear sky. 



The Danish astronomers, who have been selected to take 

 observations of the transit of Venus, have left Copenhagen for 

 Santa Cruz. 



On commencing his Winter course of lectures on Comparative 

 Anatomy at King's College, Prof. Jeffery Bell made the fol- 

 lowing remarks : — " In ordinary circumstances it is well to 

 proceed at once to the work before us, but, during the six 

 months that have elapsed, since I last addressed a class of 

 comparative anatomy from this chair, two heavy blows have 

 fallen on the students of zoological science ; the two most re- 

 markable of English workers have been taken away from us, 

 the one full of years and honours, the other the bearer of a 

 glorious promise. I should not be doing my duty if I were not 

 to ask you to pause for a moment on the threshold of your 

 studies to bear witness with me to the regrets which we justly 

 feel at the death of Charles Darwin, and the sense of irreparable 

 loss which is connected with the name of F. M. Balfour. The 

 father of modern zoology, the reformer of all our conceptions 

 as to the workings of nature in the organic world, the 

 assiduous and patient collector of the facts of natural his- 

 tory, the prince of observers and the leader of philosophical 

 natnralists was carried to his grave in our national burying 

 place amid the mourning of tthe whole civilised world ; 

 the broad outline of his work is well known to you all. On the 

 treacherous slopes of an ice-bound mountain, aw ay from kindred 

 and friends, save such as his character had won for himself in an 

 Alpine village, and yet always in the minds of those who knew 

 him, Francis Balfour in, as we may be assured a moment of 

 time, yielded up a life of which only thirty years had been spent, 

 and lost to science and society what had promised to be as many 

 years and more of patient and far-seeing investigation, free from 

 prejudice, animated by the most scientific and philosophical of 

 ideas while he himself, urged on by the success of the past, 

 would have sought only fresh fields of victory in the future. It 

 would be useless to point out in detail here, where so many are 

 only beginners, the special services of Prof. Balfour, but you will 

 note that his name will be constantly quoted during this course, 



